A dude with an elbow for an ear and an eye stuck on his ass cheek

When I read To Kill A Mocking Bird in elementary school, I knew exactly what Boo Radley looked like. You could have asked any kid in my neighborhood and we’d all tell you the same thing, because as far as we were concerned we had our own Boo right over on Claremont Street.

Our Boo’s face was smooth where his right eye should have been and he had a big knot where his left ear should have been. At least, that’s what we had heard, ‘cause really, none of us had really ever seen him. One of the older boys had though and he had told us. And then there was that one time when Jimmy Maloney had climbed all the way to the top of The Magnolia and said he could see him fussing around in his backyard. Jimmy got so excited that he lost his grip and fell, breaking an arm and a leg.

Sometimes we would ring his doorbell then hide behind his neighbor’s car in the hopes that he would come out. But usually all we would see was the curtain slide open and closed.

Then, one fall day, for some reason, our curiosity turned into contempt. All that autumn we threw pinecones at his house. Then, that winter we threw snowballs. In the spring we came to his house with armfuls of ginkgo tree fruit to throw.

And through all this the only response we would see from him was a slight wave of the curtains.